A polymer of N-acetylglucosamine 1-phosphate in the wall of Staphylococcus lactis 2102

Abstract

1. Walls of Staphylococcus lactis 2102 contain about 40% of a phosphorylated polysaccharide, which was isolated by extraction with cold trichloroacetic acid, with dilute NaOH, and also by digestion with a Flavobacterium peptidase. 2. The purified polymer contained equimolar proportions of N-acetylglucosamine and phosphate as its sole constituents and was readily hydrolysed under gentle acidic conditions to N-acetylglucosamine 6-phosphate. 3. Studies on the intact polymer showed that it is linear and that adjacent acetamido sugar units are joined by phosphodiester bonds between their 1- and 6-positions, the glycosidic linkages having the alpha-configuration. This polymer is thus the simplest of the known microbial wall polymers possessing sugar 1-phosphate linkages. 4. Alkali degradation of the extracted polymer proceeds predominantly in a stepwise manner from the reducing end, but evidence was obtained for the direct hydrolysis of some of the inter-unit phosphodiester groups.

Natural phosphoglycans containing glycosyl phosphate units: structural diversity and chemical synthesis

“…A5 and M. varians ATCC 29750 contain identical poly(a-D D-GlcpNAc phosphate) polymers (Chart 9). 55,56 For the latter strain, the structure of the linker region between the phosphoglycan and peptidoglycan was elucidated 57 and seemed to consist of a glycosyl phosphosaccharide unit D D-GlcNAc-(1-PO 3 H-6)-b-D D-MurNAc (where N-acetyl-D D-muramic acid is a part of the peptidoglycan). The same unit was found to be a part of the linker region in the cell wall of Bacillus pumilus AHU 1650 (Chart 10).…”

Bacterial precipitins and their immunoglobulin class in atopic asthma, non-atopic asthma, and chronic bronchitis.

“…The extract was passed through Dowex 50 and finally eluted from a DEAE cellulose column using a gradient of water to I 0 M acetic acid adjusted to pH 5 0 with pyridine (Archibald and Stafford, 1972;Archibald, personal communication). After freeze drying the appropriate fractions, the a teichoic acid was reconstituted and gave a single precipitin arc against patients' sera on immunoelectrophoresis.…”

Binding of magnesium ions to cell walls of Bacillus subtilis W23 containing teichoic acid or teichuronic acid

“…Walls of B. subtilis W23 from cells grown under potassium and magnesium limitation at dilution rates of O.1h-' and 0.3h-1 contained products characteristic of a glucosylribitol teichoic acid ( Table 1). The D-alanyl substituents in crude cell walls were lost during the purification procedure, which involved incubation with trypsin and extraction with phenol (Archibald & Stafford, 1972). Although the presence of alanyl ester residues in the cell wall of S. aureus influences the binding of Mg2+ (Lambert etal., 1975b), their loss in this study was unimportant, since they were originally present in only small amounts.…”